SALEM – There’s always the option for No. 1 Portland Adventist Academy boys volleyball to set every play up for senior Oliver Thompson.
However, the Cougars are spoiled for choice, and their deep bag of options was on display Saturday, May 30 during the OSAA/OnPoint Community Credit Union 4A/3A/2A/1A state championship match with No. 7 Central Christian at West Salem High School.
While Thompson had his loud swings, his junior teammates in Riley Kim, Luke Warda, Ryan Kellog and Manny Juarez were all firing away in the title match.
The Cougars took the first set in a battle, but cruised in the second set. The Tigers clawed back to take the third though to apply some pressure.
The fourth was close the whole way, but PAA pulled it out to win the match 3-1 (25-23, 25-15, 20-25, 25-23) and claim the school’s third-ever team state title across all sports, and its first ever in boys volleyball of course with the sport in its first year under OSAA sanctioning.
“Ever since my freshman year when I joined the team, it wasn’t a sanctioned sport,” Thompson said. “Going through those years and building it up with work, work, work, this is what makes it all pay off, truly.”
Thompson was the talk of the tournament as his high-flying ability led to the loudest slams all weekend and there wasn’t much any opposing defense could do about it.
When the Cougars got in a rough spot against Central Christian, they’d hit the Thompson button and it would be a quick side-out.
“He’s a great player, we knew what was coming since they’re in our league,” Central Christian head coach Mike Polk said of Thompson. “Just tried to work on blocking and he jumps over the block.”
“It’s so fun to play,” Thompson said of the sport. “The feeling when I’m up there and I hit it down – It feels like I’m up there forever, it’s my own little world.”
With all that hype comes plenty of attention, and the Cougars knew that as junior setter Angel Flores spread the ball around in the first set.
Stepping up first was Riley Kim as he put down a number of early points for PAA to take an 8-4 lead.
However, the Tigers started to shift the block and that led to some points, eventually taking a 17-16 lead in the first set.
That’s when Thompson came to the rescue with the Cougars down 22-20. He got the next two kills to tie the set at 22, followed by a hitting error from the Tigers and a kill from Riley Kim.
The two sides traded service errors from there, giving PAA the 25-23 set one win.
“We call him our secret weapon, that’s our ultimate right there,” Riley Kim said of Thompson. “You just can’t stop the guy. You can put a hand up, but he’s above that hand. We’ve known this for four years since he started, he’s different, there’s nothing like him.”
“These guys have been my ride or die for two or three years now,” Thompson said of the juniors around him. “I loved the seniors last year, but these are my guys. I just love them so much, they’re such good teammates to play with, they’re so positive and they’re great to be around.”
The second set belonged to Riley Kim, the son of head coach Joe Kim, as the junior put away five kills in the second.
The Cougars led 8-7 in the second set before taking off with a 12-4 run to make it 20-11 PAA, a run that included an ace and a kill from Riley Kim, two kills from Warda and one more slam from Thompson.
Directing that kind of traffic isn’t easy, but Flores made it look that way despite this being his first year at the setter position.
“That guy makes us look good, even when we’re giving him bad passes, he makes us look good,” Riley Kim said of Flores. “I give all my credit to my guy. I’m not a hitter, Luke Warda isn’t a hitter, Oliver Thompson isn’t a hitter if we don’t have our setter Angel. He makes our team.”
Central Christian wasn’t leaving without something, and the Tigers got it in the third set.
Tied at 14, the Tigers used a 3-0 run to move ahead 17-14 and eventually turned the lead into a 23-17 advantage that they were able to close out.
Junior Gavin Sharp had an incredible tournament and was hitting well at times against the Cougars. He had four kills in the third set along with two blocks, both coming on Thompson.
“We knew that’s where he was and when it showed up was the state tournament,” Polk said of Sharp. “Good timing, we peaked at the right time.”
“That guy is a great hitter,” Thompson said of Sharp. “He’s hard to read and he’s powerful.”
With the third set under their belt, the Tigers weren’t going to make the fourth set any easier.
PAA looked as if it might pull away up 16-12, but Central Christian slowed chipped away and eventually got to within one point three separate times, the latest at a 24-23 deficit.
However, the Cougars knew who they had, and on the final point, there was no one else getting the set other than Thompson who rocketed one last ball to the West Salem floor for the state title.
“The way that it ended, that’s the perfect ending to a season of high school volleyball,” PAA head coach Joe Kim said. “If we kept setting him every chance we got that would be the easy way out. But at the same time he draws so much attention, when we get Riley and Luke on the outside and just as dominate in their position, we just have too many options on offense for most teams to handle.”
Thompson finished the night with 23 kills, 10 of which came in the fourth set to help close out the state victory. Warda and Riley Kim each chipped in 10 kills while Kellog had a hot streak in the third set that led to five kills. Kellog also had two aces to close out the second set win.
Sharp had 11 kills to lead the Tigers offensive efforts.
And even though the Tigers left Salem with silver, the season was an incredible one for the 1A school going against much larger opponents and reaching the school’s first-ever title game in any sport.
“We’re playing schools that are five, six, seven times bigger than us,” Polk said. “We have a volleyball culture at Central Christian. Between the boys and girls, it’s a great culture.
“(The seniors) have done a lot, we call them the Founding Fathers. We will miss them greatly and we wish them well in the future.”
For PAA, the title meant so much to the community around the school, which was apparent in the large crowd that made the trip south to Salem to watch a piece of school history. Joe Kim said it couldn't have possible without his assistant coaches either in Sharika Kim and Fernando Chavez.
The Cougars only previous team titles came from the 2015 boys soccer team and the 1996 boys basketball team. Shoutout to Matt Ballou as well, the school’s only individual state champ with the 1999 boys golf medal.
“This is huge and everyone showed up,” Joe Kim said. “Starting on Friday, we had a send-off. The entire school came out and surprised the guys with a send-off through the gym. For everyone to show up this late, yesterday and today, is just amazing. Without their energy, I think our guys would have had a harder time keeping their energy up.”
The match marked the end of the first official OSAA season for boys volleyball, which provides its own bit of history that the Cougars will now always be a part of.
There’s many more blue trophies to hand out in the future of Oregon boys volleyball, but Portland Adventist will certainly never forget who did it first.
“It means so much and we had a huge crowd tonight,” Riley Kim said. “Being an Adventist school, our Sabbath is on Saturday, this is a rare occasion to get to play on sundown on our Sabbath. This is history for us, we don’t go to state often.
“It’s such a great feeling, having all this effort and being rewarded for it, it’s an amazing feeling.”
In the third place match, No. 3 Estacada swept No. 4 Westside Christian 25-21, 25-19, 25-22 to take home bronze.
austinw@osaa.org
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